1. ) PEGAWAI PENYIASAT JENAYAH KORPORAT/KEWANGAN INSP JEINTHAN ANNANTHAKRISHNAN 2. ) Kerajaan Malaysia v ANANTHAGOPI A/L ALAGUGANESAN

Case Significance

Reinforces the constitutional protections surrounding arrest — including the right under Article 5 of the Federal Constitution to be informed of the grounds of arrest — and confirms that a statutory justification advanced only as an afterthought will not shield unlawful arrest and detention from liability in damages.

This Court of Appeal decision concerns the unlawful arrest and detention of a foreign national, and an appeal by a police investigation officer and the Federal Government against a High Court judgment holding them liable. The respondent, an Indian national, had arrived in Malaysia in March 2020 and was stranded by the movement control restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic; although his social visit pass was due to expire in August 2020, the Immigration Department had issued a circular in March 2020 permitting foreign nationals to remain in the country because of those restrictions. In October 2020 the police, while investigating the reported misappropriation of a temple deity statue, raided a house and arrested the respondent, who was with the owner of the house. He was removed from the house, taken to the police headquarters and detained. The High Court had found that he was not informed of the grounds of his arrest, was denied the opportunity to produce his passport, and was unlawfully detained, and it had awarded him damages. On appeal, the central question was whether those findings were open on the evidence and the law. The Court of Appeal held that they were: the trial judge had not been plainly wrong in either the findings of fact or the conclusions of law, and the reliance on the Immigration Act to justify the arrest was, on the facts, an afterthought that did not withstand scrutiny given the Immigration circular. The court reiterated that the lawfulness of an arrest is tested against what the arresting officer knew and did at the time, not against justifications assembled afterwards to defend the action. It accordingly dismissed the appeal unanimously, affirmed the High Court's judgment on liability and damages, and ordered the appellants to pay costs of RM30,000. The judgment reinforces the constitutional protections surrounding arrest, including the right to be told the grounds of arrest under Article 5 of the Federal Constitution.